<30.8% A Very Poor Democracy

In the local elections coming up in May, all our present contingent of councillors will all be up for election. As a local authority worker for Leeds City Council, myself and all my 14,632 colleagues are disqualified from standing for election. Disqualifying almost 15,000 people from standing for election seems quite bizarre to me, not many people are interested in politics, the bigger the pool to choose from, the better. The turnout in my electoral ward in 2016, Morley South was 30.8%, a sad reflection on how people feel about politics. In the English local elections of 2016, in some areas fewer than one in five eligible voters went to their local polling station to cast a vote, raising fears of a broken system.

The turnout in the 2012 Scottish local elections was 39.6%, and in 2017 local elections turnout was 46.9% Some people might already be aware of the differences between England and Scotland. Scotland have no tuition fees, no prescription charges, its own Parliament and the Scottish Parliament also has Proportional representation(PR). The Scottish government have also been praised for progress made on children’s health in 2017, they made better progress than England and Wales.

The Electoral Commission carried out a report for the government in 2015, the report recommended that England should adopt the same qualifying rules for elections as Scotland, and local authority workers should be allowed to stand, but they would have to resign their job with the local authority if elected. The report has not been acted upon yet. The Conservative gave the DUP £1 billion so that they can get bills through Parliament, but very little few bills are being processed.

I believe that Scotland have a better democracy than England, we to catch up.